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Daoud Kuttab, a former professor at Princeton University and the founder and former director of the Institute of Modern Media at Al-Quds University in Ramallah, is a leading activist for media freedom in the Middle East.

All well and good, sir. But when you lived in Princeton, were the inner city residents of Trenton lobbing rockets onto the campus every now and then? Did the mob in East Windsor build tunnels with the intention of kidnapping kids living around Nassau Street?

I pray for a return to sanity. Once your people learn that peaceful, non-violent protest (a la Gandhi, MK King) is the civilized way of resistance, on that day the world will find a receptive Israel. But until that happens, Israel will continue to live in fear and will maintain a psyche of always being under attack.

The reason Israel maintains a psyche of always being under attack is that it does not want to stop its colonisation. The blaming of the victim started already in 1948 when Israel executed a mass ethnic cleansing of more than half of the Palestinians and largely destroyed their society in order to replace it by a Jewish society. I'm an expert on this (http://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/hls.2010.0105). This is still happening on the West Bank. Palestinians don't have a right to attack Israeli citizens, but they do have a right to resist Israels racist and murderous colonisation policies.

Netanyahu committed mass murder in 2014, with the support of a huge majority of Israeli Jews. Livni and labor did the same in 2008/9, with the same support.
Can Israel sink lower? I'm afraid it can. THE ONLY HOPE FOR ISRAEL IS that A BOYCOTT by the rest of the world will bring it to its senses.

In Palestine there are serious problems. Human rights are violated everyday and the IDF exerts authority on civilians. The electricity is cut and Israel commits a genocide against the Palestinians. I simple recognition of Palestine isn't sufficient. Greece, Sweden both recognize Palestine, so what? More needs to be done. There are blockades in the streets and Palestinians who are jail without reason. That includes children. The international organizations of human rights like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch must act. The international community must recognize Palestine and help the people to survive there. Please read the report of AI for Palestine: https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/middle-east-and-north-africa/israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/report-israel-and-occupied-palestinian-territories/

The Palestinians have amply proven that they will use any territory they control to launch attacks on Israel. Peace is not possible at present. There is no point fretting about something that cannot be changed.

Netanyahu has crossed a line, the international community will not trust him to engage any form of road to peace. It was Israel, specifically Netanyahu yesterday that pushed us to war in Irak (playing into right wing neocon aspirations) and it is Israel today that would push us into a war with Iran playing with that same discredited group. Had we not engaged in a bad, illegal, destructive war in Irak we would not have the regional destabilization that generated ISIS and much more.
Now he would have us abandon the critical normalization of relations with Iran, perhaps the only culture in the region besides Israel with which we can develop potential cultural affinities.
Here again we are captive of the discreet entente between Israel and sunni countries led by our common geopolitical belief that Saudi Arabia holds the key to stability, likely another bad choice going forward as Saudi Arabia's dual purpose in engineering of the current price of the barrel to ensure on the one hand the US does not become energy efficient, on the other to cripple Iran's support of Shia dominated areas such as Irak.
Netanyahu has fully discredited himself at this juncture, confirming for many the 2011 discord at the G20 when France' President Sarkozy, unaware of an open mic addressed President Obama regarding Netanyahu to say off record "I cannot stand him any more, he is a liar" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl7idMV92MA .

Dear Jean-Pierre de Lutz,
I totally agree with you that there is no point to rant and/or engage in meaningless name-calling: this is a public forum, so everyone can read your post, my criticism and your reply and judge for themselves what is relevant and what is not.

Dear Jean-Pierre de Lutz,
I totally agree with you that there is no point to rant and/or engage in meaningless name-calling: this is a public forum, so everyone can read your post, my criticism and your reply and judge for themselves what is relevant and what is not.

Dear Dov Fowler, it appears to me at least that you are using my words to promote right wing pro-Israel talking points as your reply does not respond to to my comment. I also resent your insinuation that I or my again my words contain any form of racism. Please find another forum to rant at, there are plenty for which your words make sense.

Dear Dov Fowler, it appears to me at least that you are using my words to promote right wing pro-Israel talking points as your reply does not respond to to my comment. I also resent your insinuation that I or my again my words contain any form of racism. Please find another forum to rant at, there are plenty for which your words make sense.

Dear Jean Pierre de Lutz,
It seems that you are clearly out of line here:
1. A big, powerful and democratic nation like the United State certainly can make its decisions without tiptoeing to Israel. By your comment you are insulting both Israel and the US.
2. Moreover, your insinuations that Israelis (or is it Jews?) control the world do not belong to the XXIst century - this is garbage alike the "the protocols of the elders of Zion" which most of the civilized world despises along with Nazism and other expressions of irrational hatred and racism.
3. Finally, your claim that "Iran, perhaps the only culture in the region besides Israel with which we can develop potential cultural affinities" is an expression of anti-Arab racism.

While Netanyahu basks in self-adulation after the election, Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian scholar and journalist urges the international community to "isolate Israel". Since Netanyahu announced he would ditch "his commitment to a two-state solution with Palestine" while "pledging to continue building settlements on occupied land", he had blatantly defied international law, rendering "support for direct negotiations between Israel and Palestine" impossible! Moreover his denigrating remarks about Israel's Arab voters, indicates he will not be prime minister of all citizens. With him at the helm, Israel can hardly pride itself on being a democratic country.
Given these premises, Kuttab believes the "justification for not censoring Israel too harshly in international institutions or using boycotts to punish Israel for war crimes is no longer valid". A Palestinian-led movement - "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)" was launched in 2005. Pressure on Israel is mounting, especially from Europe, where NGOs, trade unions, churches etc. are forcing their governments to take action. After Netanyahu "finagled" the election outcome, EU leaders may see no more qualms about taking a tougher stance.
Two years ago the EU blocked grants and funding for any Israeli entity operating beyond the pre-1967 borders. Last year John Kerry warned that Israel would face more calls for boycotts if the peace talks collapsed. Now he can give this warning a serious thought. International corporations are ending their business and shunned bids in Israel. This trend will continue to knock some sense into Netanyahu, until he abides by international law and ends his policies of apartheid and occupation.
A year ago Netanyahu dismissed European support of BDS as anti-Semitic, seeing it as an effort to destroy the Jewish state! He sought to pacify the domestic audience: "Israel is being sought after.. Founders and leaders of big companies and some small companies and medium-sized companies … are all coming to Israel. They all want the same three things: Israeli technology, Israeli technology and Israeli technology. They know that Israel is the repository of great genius, great creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation" etc. Perhaps soon he may have to tone down his optimism!
While it is important to coerce Israel to respect international law, it is equally important to dissuade Hamas from launching rockets on Israel, which gave Netanyahu an excuse to destroy Gaza! Indeed Palestinians are stuck in vicious circles of poverty and violence. The two grievances are inter-related and need to be dealt with decisively, for the sake of future generations!

The two-state solution depends critically on its acceptance by all the surrounding Muslim nations, Sunni and Shia alikie. While certainly their interests include seeing a viable homeland for the Palestinians, it is not at all clear that a further obstacle will not prove impossible to overcome.

That is the claims to the Al-Aqsa mosque, which lies outside east Jersualem. Increasingly, it seems that even if all other conditions were met satisfactorily, religious opposition to a deal that does not include all of Jerusalem for the Palestinians will trump political expediency. Even if they themselves might agree, continued extremist calls for violence against the Jewish people would ensue any peace deal.

This in turn means that Israel will not gain security from a peace deal. The terrifiying reality that is beginning to impose itself over other considerations is that this is very much a religious war. What this portends is a prolonged period of violence until some manner of accomodation of Islamic doctrine is made. Islam must, ultimately, drop its claim to being able to enforce its beliefs by any means other than peaceful persuasion. The bad news is, that indeed would be "unIslamic," at least vis-a-vis the canon. The Goridan knot of our time.

Palestinians could have had peace and a two state solution numerous times during the 20th century, but rejected all proposals, whether from Israel or from third parties such as the US. Peace and coexistence with Israel is not what the Arabs are interested in. Their end game is the total destruction of Israel and the the complete exclusion of Jews (and Christians, for that matter) from the Middle East.

Say whatever you want about Bibi, but the election was a great triumph of the Israeli democracy... and the Israeli Arabs. The United Arab List is now the third largest party in the Knesset - a real force to be reckoned with. This, on the one hand, demonstrates that all the Israeli citizens have equal rights - whether they are Jews, Arabs, Druze or Bedouins. On the other hand, this puts on them responsibility to play a constructive role in Israel's political life rather than sit on the sidelines and make extremist statements. Finally, this certainly takes the steam out of anyone's effort to exploit the problems of the Israeli Arabs for their political goals.

In an ideal world, Netanyahu's hawkish paranoia may shine a light on US hypocrisy when it comes to "principles" behind the international order we enforce. But I doubt anyone out there not eating a ton of sedatives believes that kind of thing anymore, so it actually will make little difference.

The American, European, and Asian public, the media, and most of all the policy establishment -- none of these groups had any problem whatsoever turning a blind eye to the colossal crime which was the Iraq war, US support for Al Quaeda in Syria, and half a dozen equally ugly episodes of pure wickedness.

Ignoring another few years of Israel blowing up Palestinians will be a piece of cake.

Can Bibi form a rightist govt that will last? The new profile of MK is very different, according to Haretz. Or will he swing back to two-state solution and confuse his supporters?
The man is a danger for Israel security, methinks.